This invention relates to a drive mechanism for driving a printer carriage carrying a printing head and also feeding an ink ribbon.
Serial printers, in which an ink ribbon cassette is removably mounted on a carriage carrying a printing head, are known in the art. The carriage is driven at the time of a printing operation along lines of printing by a drive mechanism having a cord or cable. Meanwhile, the ink ribbon in the ink ribbon cassette is driven in accordance with the movement of the carriage by a drive force transmission mechanism provided separately from the drive mechanism for driving the carriage, for instance as disclosed in British Pat. No. 1,493,479. The provision of the drive force transmission mechanism for feeding the ink ribbon entirely separately from the drive mechanism for driving the carriage, however, increases the number of component parts and complicates the construction.
An object of the invention is to provide a drive mechanism for driving the printer carriage and which can feed an ink ribbon by making use of a driving force for driving a printer carriage.